Digital Voices: Landlocked Shipyards and not-so-Smart TV 27/10/2012

Comment chatter has been a little dormant this week for reasons we can’t fathom – we’ve reviewed Sky’s new Sky Hub Router and the Humax HDR-1000S, aka the first Free Time from Freesat set top box.

On top of that, BT has been busy connecting more homes to superfast broadband and cranking up the speed of its BT Infinity 100 to 160Mbps.

Slow news week? Hardly. Maybe with the cold weather and long nights drawing in people have gone into hibernation mode. There’s still been a bit of below-the-line-banter this week which we’ve harvested here for your delectation.

If you’ve got an opinion on any of the stories we’ve covered, have an axe to grind about BT, the BBC, or nothing but good things to say about them or anyone else, let us know below any of our stories or on Twitter and we’ll serve up the most insightful and inciteful comments here every Saturday morning.

Smart TV is at the moment sa niche market. While some are convinced that it’s really the Next Big Thing and Apple is poised to change the world, others aren’t so sure. To be honest we’re not so sure about some of the smart TV wheezes we hear about, which is why is was so refreshing to hear from the aptly-named ‘Disappointed’:

“Smart Tv’s are vastly over rated, have frustratingly slow internet and browser speeds, and have lots of annoying apps which most people don’t use. (I mean, a fitness app?? Really!!) The ones which would be really handy to have as well as the BBC iPlayer and ITV player would be the 4OD and channel 5 on demand service, but despite punters paying hugely inflated prices for these smart Tv’s they are not present. Shocking really!!”

You’d think that BBC iPlayer would be a standard feature of any smart TV or connected box worth its salt. Which is why it’s a little baffling to learn that it’s taken this long for the iPlayer to head to the Sky+HD box!

Bashing local councils is a time honoured tradition and the right of any British citizen. Speaking about the millions of public pounds needed to prop up the Digital Region network, one ‘Horse Tips’ saw it fit to lambast the local government in a rather colourful fashion:

“Stupid idea in the first place, w**ker councillors skimming money off the top and awarding the contracts to their friends.

Knowing the area very well it is a moronic idea, there was already a plan in place to have fibre optic installed in 2012/2013 which would have made it redundant anyway. Perhaps building a shipyard in Doncaster would be a good idea?? I am sure they would give it a go!”

While we’re all for altnets and local broadband schemes bringing fibre to areas before BT would, it doesn’t look like others share our enthusiasm. Profligacy with public money is a sure fire way to wind up constituents and rightly so, but we don’t quite think that Digital Region deserves to go in the chocolate fireguard/landlocked shipyard category.

Generating at least ten lolworthy comments a week, the BT killer RABIT story is the gift that keeps on giving. A story about anti-theft measures has generated some serious Class A vitriol since it’s been posted. We’ve seen calls for corporal punishment, capital punishment and mass deportations (sometimes all at once) for the relatively mild crime of lifting some metal out of the ground. Inevitably, some of the threads have swiftly descended into infighting with ‘just a bloke’ taking the gold for this week’s most pitchforky retort:

just a bloke
“……. on the contrary, all law abiding citizens LOVE a ‘grass’ !!! its just low life scum who have vested interests (like you perhaps?) who continue to come out with such rubbish!”

Quite right. The rope’s too good for them, eh what?

That’s your lot for this week – let us know your thoughts in the comments and in the Twittersphere.